For Science!

The io9 site recently published an article discussing four fascinating papers on the subject of measuring pain. The studies in question were all done back in the 1940’s with the goal of coming up with a reliable and reproducible method for quantifying levels of pain. The scanned versions of papers can be read online: Paper 1 (1940), Paper 2 (1947), Paper 3 (1947) and Paper 4 (1948). They’re fairly readable and easy to understand, assuming you having a grounding in basic maths and science.

Pain in itself is a curious topic, as it’s such a uniquely subjective experience. We normally build understanding by shared references. Yet, if I tell someone my back hurts, how do we establish a common reference point? With external stimulus, like color or sound, we can measure the spectrum or the loudness irrespective of a person. Something like taste or smell is a little more complex, but there’s at least an external object (the food itself) to breakdown and analyze. It’s also possible in those cases to construct a common language from more primitive elements (sweet, bitter, salt, etc.) Just look at wine tasting notes for an example of that approach in action. But with pain? How do you measure something that’s completely internal, and can manifest at any point in the body, to a huge range of stimulus, or sometimes to no apparent stimulus at all?

The scientists behind these papers tackled the problem by proposing a scale for measuring pain, with a unit called the dol. They created it using controlled doses of heat on volunteers, and measuring when they could detect a difference between the heat intensity levels. They discovered that on average people could distinguish 21 levels of different intensity between nothing and maximum pain. This maximum wasn’t some safety limit set by the scientists. It turns out that there’s an upper limit on pain, a maximum beyond which increased intensity isn’t detected as greater pain. Working with this 0 to 21 detectable level changes, they assigned 1 dol =equals 2 levels, and created a 0 to 10.5 pain scale.

There’s all sorts of interesting bits of data in the papers. For example, mood and fatigue made no difference to the perception of pain, but gripping an iron bar tightly or hearing a very loud sound did. That fits the common intuition that being distracted from pain lessens it. They also showed that pain did not sum over an area. In other words, the intensity of the pain was purely related to the intensity of the heat energy applied, not the size of the area it was applied to. Initially that seems a little count-intuitive, but it does fit to the idea that being distracted can help reduce pain. One thing that can distract you is a different pain. That wouldn’t be true if pain was additive.

The most interesting finding is one that I think the io9 article misunderstands, or at least misrepresents. It says…

The study’s authors concluded that 8 dols of pain equaled four successive two dol experiences. This arithmetic aspect of the dol contrasted existing beliefs of the subjective nature of pain.

That seems to suggest some sort of progression in time, where you can reach very high pain levels by repeatedly applying a low pain stimulus. That’s not what the study found. What they discovered was that the scale is linear. So the increase in intensity between 1 and 2 dols, is perceived as the same increase in intensity when moving from 8 to 9 dols. I think most people would think of a pain scale like the Richter scale for measuring earthquakes. That’s a log scale, and so going from a magnitude 4 to 5 earthquake is basically nothing, where going from a magnitude 7 to 8 is huge. Similarly, you might expect that a 1 to 2 change in pain isn’t much, where going from 8 to 9 is very scary, but it’s actually perceived as the same change in intensity. This also means that the standard 0 to 10 scale doctors often use, where 0 is no pain and 10 is worst pain you can imagine, actually makes sense. There is an upper bound to pain and the scale between zero and that maximum value is a simple linear one.

The io9 article has a sense of ‘Wow, look what these crazy scientists used to be able to get away with.’ To me it didn’t seem that bad. As a masochist I may have a distorted view on this, but it’s only temporary pain. I suspect if they’d hired an attractive female doctor with an authoritative attitude to perform the tests, as in this artwork by Waldo, then they’d have been inundated with volunteers. Although that might have thrown their experimental results off. They claimed mood didn’t make a difference, but I doubt they also considered or induced sexual arousal.

Waldo ArtworkWaldo Artwork

Enthusiasm

This image comes courtesy of Otto’s Femdom spanking art. It’s a nicely executed drawing, with a pair of enthusiastic ladies providing all sorts of stimulation to their victims.

I always enjoy coming across obscure but fun drawings like this.The internet is full of talented amateurs writing stories, posting photographs, creating blogs, etc. But for some reason I find artwork particularly appealing. Seeing talent in someone else is always pleasurable, and artwork is a very immediate way to demonstrate it. There’s a quick hit of “Oh that’s hot, I like that” quickly followed by “And somebody out there created this from nothing.”

Enthusiastic mistresses caning slaves

Ride’em cowgirl

While I’m posting on the subject of gleeful sadists, here’s a rendered version of one. The breasts of the cowgirl in question appear to be trying to make a break for it and flee the scene, but she certainly looks like she’s enjoying herself.

The expression I particularly like in this image is actually the maid with the tray of implements. Her face portrays a nice blend of amusement, satisfaction and derision. I’m probably reading too much into a collection of shaded polygons, but she strikes me as more of a sadist than the lady waving the riding crop around.

Mistress riding her slave while maid watchesI’m afraid I don’t know the name of the artist for this or even where I found it. The “SIS001” identity doesn’t turn up anything usual via a search engine. Thanks to google image search I did turn up a gallery containing this image on imagefap. So if you like it I’d suggest taking a look there for similar works.

Pushing his buttons

After yesterday’s wordy ramblings, here’s a little bit of light entertainment. It’s an advertisement for the Dream Lover 2000, in the form of a flash movie (note that linked page has sound). For those that have never seen this device before, it looks like an advanced form of an electro-shock collar, but designed for a chastity device. The movie is nicely done, with a fun contrast between the upbeat lighthearted style and the function of the device being sold. In fact their whole site is a little unusual. It’s put together in a slick but quite serious way, like they’re selling training devices into a corporate market rather than a BDSM sex toy. There’s a lot of talk about operant conditioning and microchip controllers, but nothing about D/s or kink.

I thought I’d pick an image of a suitably well behaved and trained male. Here’s a little domestic service courtesy of the artist Juan Puyal. I came across it on the Femdom Style Counsel tumblr.

Juan Puyal Artwork

Added John Willie to Femdom Artwork

John Willie is normally considered more of a general BDSM and fetish artist than a femdom one. However, he’s really a pioneering figure, setting the standard for a lot of the great BDSM artists that came after him. Given that fact, and that a lot of his work is F/f, I think he’s a very appropriate artist to add my femdom artwork pages.

John Willie Artwork

Inappropriate reactions

I was told tonight that my penis was having ‘an inappropriate reaction to pain.’ That’s not a statement you hear every day of the week, no matter how kinky you are. It was a tongue in cheek comment from Lydia after a lot of tiny but sharp wooden clips affixed to the said appendage had increased my arousal. It was a vicious circle. Quite literally vicious in this case. The more they hurt, the more aroused I got, and the more aroused I got, the more the skin was stretched and the more it hurt. Masochism can be very strange.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your tolerance for scrawny naked English masochists) we didn’t get any photographs. So I was forced to hunt through my image collection and the tumblverse for something appropriate. You’d think that a combination of aroused male and pain inflicting dominant female would be an easy shot to find. After all, that sounds like a pretty fundamental part of femdom porn. It turns out to be far rarer than I’d expected. Lots of aroused guys in gay BDSM porn or solo male shots. A few aroused guys in more soft focus, blindfolds and fuzzy handcuffs type BDSM. Lots of pain and torture shots with a bunch of floppy dicks. But very little combining the two. I realize that as problems go this isn’t one likely to keep people awake at night, but it certainly surprised and temporarily stymied me.

In the end I decided to go with some art from Vernice61. You can always rely on him for a combination of dominant women, aroused males and painful torments. Of course that’s the beauty of artwork. It can always be exactly what the artist wants it to be.

Vernice61 artwork

Searching for a little inspiration

The last few days have found me hunting through my archives of femdom art and erotic fiction in search of a little creative inspiration. I’m trying to carve out time to do some more femdom fiction writing, which for me is an enjoyable but slow process. Normally I just start bashing away at whatever random theme comes to mind, typically without any prepared plan or structure. Occasionally that turns into something worth publishing, but more often than not it bogs down and ends up being left to rot in my unfinished ideas folder. This time I’m trying to be a little more scientific. I’ve been analyzing some of my favorite authors (e.g. Tyjord, drkfetyshnyghts and Anne Gray) to see what parts of their stories really push my buttons. It has been interesting and educational to try and deconstruct why certain passages really grab me. For example, I liked this a lot.

Jason panicked as he felt the tugging on the front of his collar as Victoria pulled the chain through the ring on the ceiling. For a moment he thought they were going to hang him as he choked from both the gag and the pressure on his collar.

Seeing the distress in his eyes, Kristi leaned over his ear and whispered to him, “you can ease off the pressure a bit if you lift yourself up on your toes.” Gratefully he did so, putting all of his weight on the rubber encased balls of his feet. Immediately, Victoria took up the slack in the chain and hooked the taught metal to another ring in the wall near her. Kristi then grabbed another strap and buckled it around his newly exposed instep.
From ‘Jason’s Vacation’ by Tyjord

The apparent concern, the whispered words of apparent comfort and advice, and then the cruel betrayal. That’s hot.

I’m thinking of setting a story inside a medical establishment, so I’ve been browsing artwork along those lines. The piece below is one that particularly grabbed me. I know from personal experience that a little Icy Hot or VapoRub can be pretty painful when applied to delicate tissues. I can’t imagine what it’d be like when slathered on liberally with a painters brush.

It’s not signed but from the style I believe it’s from Tink2001. His work has featured here in the past (for example here, here and here). He has a personal site with a small collection of images located here.

Patient being treated with VapoRubOn an entertaining side note I tried putting this into Google’s image search to see what it would come back with. That’s often a good way to find other sites that have featured particular artists. In this case it came back with “Best guess for this image: 3d animal porn”. Not exactly what I was hoping for.

Uppity Submissives

Here’s a couple of submissives taking charge for once. The text isn’t all that clear, so in case you can’t read it the one of the left is saying “Don’t worry Mistress. We called in sick for you. Today you don’t need to go to work. Instead, we’re gonna have a nice little birthday party.” And the one on the right is saying “That’s right mistress! Now, come on, make a wish!” I’m not entirely sure of the exact backstory, but I’m guessing this is only a temporary rebellion that they may well regret further down the road.

The art comes courtesy of Shiniez from his site on deviant art. You’ll need to register to view anything, which is annoying, but it’s free and well worth it. There are a lot of good artists featured on the deviant art site in general. In this case you can see the original of this image in its original 1600×993 glory, plus a lot of really well drawn F/f and M/f BDSM artwork. Shiniez strikes me as unusual in that he actually tries to develop emotional and nuanced BDSM artwork. This piece is a good example. Note that it’s really big and long, so you may need to right click, select view image and then zoom to see it properly, or see original here. That’s an example from an ongoing series, taken just after a hot play session between the two women. It obviously lacks context when presented alone like this, but it’s also very clearly different to the simple ‘single snapshot of an extreme scene’ that’s so common in BDSM artwork. When was the last time you saw artwork showing a dom/sub couple unwinding and indulging in aftercare?

Happy Birthday to Mistress

A study in contrasts

When browsing tumbrs there’s so much pornographic content available that it can begin to blur together. The endless sweaty naked bodies all start to look the same. Occasionally however, something will stop me dead in my browsing tracks. Here’s an image that did exactly that when I came across it on Wonton Art.

There’s the obvious use of color contrast, with the submissive bright, cheerful and fleshy, while the dominant is grey and forbidding. More significantly, there’s also the stylistic contrast. The submissive is male but feminine, lithe and sensuous. He reminds me a little of a Japanese videogame character, something from a role-playing series that features an angst ridden and sensitive male lead. In contrast the dominant is unambiguously female, but imposing and serious. She’s striding away, her point clearly made. If he’s from a modern videogame, then she’s from a Victorian melodrama, possibly featuring orphans and a cruel governess.

ContrastsI’m afraid I don’t know the artist, but I would love to see more works from him or her. Please leave a comment if you can help me attribute it.

Bringing up the rear

Here’s the last of my field of three horse related posts. It’s a little more artwork from Robert Bishop, this time featuring a nicely costumed bucking horse. Unlike the previous animals, this one seems a bit feisty, but she doesn’t look like she’ll have any problems keeping him under control. I suspect she might even enjoy a little intransigence from her mount.

Robert Bishop artwork of woman riding man dressed as horse